Our archipelago is composed of 7,000 islands. So many vessels are criss-crossing these islands any time of th day. A big majority of our population are dependent of marine life for food or livelihood.
So many of our countrymen rely on ships, boats and other water based vessels to travel from one island to another yet our government never had been strict in imposing the required diligence that operators of such common carriers must exercise in the conduct of such business. They must be extraordinarily diligent. That is the legal requirement which is understandable as they are entrusted with the life and limb of the traveling public. Not only that, their cargo must also be taken care of that way as these are also valuable.
But we have known of so many passenger ships that got sunk and nothing happened to really require such ships to be really seaworthy and for their operators to really know what extraordinary diligence means. Their mastery over that should be as good as they know the wrinkles on the back of their hands.
The laxity of our supervision of the shipping industry was once again shown recently by the sinking of a ship that had about 800,000 of oil under its hull. Many days had passed and yet the government had not done anything to plug the leak. It does not have the capacity to do so. Now it is asking for help from the US and Japanese governments.
It was a catastrophic disaster that is killing the livelihood of millions of our countrymen, depending on marine resources for their food and businesses.
We had known all along that vessels are exposed to grave danger everyday. And yet it appears we are not ready for any kind of sea mishap which can happen anytime
That means our government never really cared for the welfare of our people. After all, it is those in the lower income brackets who patronize such ships. And from their ranks come the fishermen who depend on marine life for their livelihood.
The rich are not dependent on the sea. They have so many other options.
In short, government officials never really cared.**